The ranch woman thought of that first afternoon.
Her deliberate provocation.
His fear.
The sentence.
I’m too big for you.
She closed the book.
The cowboy looked down.
“Finished?”
“No.”
“Then why close it?”
She smiled.
He immediately became suspicious.
“I know that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that destroys my afternoon.”
She turned across his lap.
One arm around his shoulders.
He smiled.
“What?”
She touched his cheek.
“You were never too big for me.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Are we doing this again?”
“Yes.”
“I admitted I was wrong.”
“I enjoy hearing it.”
“Of course you do.”
She kissed him softly.
Then rested her forehead against his.
The cowboy’s hand moved along her waist.
“Know what I was actually afraid of?”
“What?”
“You.”
She laughed.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because before you came here, I knew exactly what my life was.”
She became quiet.
“Then you arrived.”
His expression softened.
“And?”
“And suddenly I wanted things.”
“What things?”
“This.”
He gestured vaguely.
The ranch woman smiled.
“Very descriptive.”
“You.”
He kissed her forehead.
“Us.”
Another kiss.
“Tomorrow.”
The ranch woman’s eyes stung.
The cowboy looked away, embarrassed.
She laughed softly.
“Still afraid of saying nice things?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Wouldn’t want you becoming easy.”
He smiled.
“You never make anything easy.”
“No.”
The ranch woman reopened the book.
The cowboy settled beneath her.
Outside, cattle moved across the pasture.
The ranch hands shouted somewhere beyond the corrals.
The world continued exactly as ordinary worlds do.
That was what made it precious.
No gunmen.
No forged debt.
No warnings.
No fear.
Only a woman reading on the lap of a man who once believed his strength made him dangerous to everyone he loved.
And a man finally understanding that gentleness was not the absence of strength.
It was strength with a choice.
His hand rested at her waist.
Not gripping.
Not afraid.
Simply there.
The ranch woman turned another page.
Then smiled without looking up.
“What?”
The cowboy asked.
“Nothing.”
“That means something.”
She finally looked at him.
“I was thinking about the station clerk.”
“Why?”
“He warned me about you.”
The cowboy groaned.
“What did he say?”
“That you were very large.”
“That man talks too much.”
“And that you didn’t speak.”
“Accurate.”
“I told him I’d survived men who talked too much.”
The cowboy smiled.
“And?”
She leaned down.
“I didn’t know the quiet one would be so much trouble.”
He kissed her.
The book slipped from her hand into the hay.
Neither bothered picking it up for a while.